Bell Family Company Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2014

Bell Family works hard to connect the best sitters and nannies with your families; truly making them feel like part of your family. We’d like to take this Family Friday to introduce one of our own Bell Family Company “family members” here in the office: Shannon.

Shannon is our resident Project Coordinator. Despite taking a few months off to travel the world, she is back in action and will be helping connect families and sitters from the NYC office.

Shannon is originally from Long Island and is a graduate of the University of Delaware. She loves to travel and has spent time abroad as a full-time, live-in Au Pair in Germany for 4 children ages 1-5 years. She is fluent in Spanish and conversational in German!

Shannon gets welcomed back by her favorite German family while visiting

She has babysat her entire life for families in her neighborhood newborns to teens. Shannon also volunteered at a school with had classrooms that combine mainstream students and students with special needs. Shannon adores children and is a great part of the BFC team!

One of the great questions of women considering becoming working moms is: “How will I balance everything and still be a good mom?” Luckily, there are plenty of tips and tricks to balance work and home life; plus, having a career and a family is perfectly normal! Your kids will turn out great despite a few hours away from them, and will still have a great role model.

Accept that there will be tradeoffs: taking on another job in addition to being a mother pretty much mandates that there will be tradeoffs. Some nights may be pizza or takeout, and you may even have to buy store-bought playdough instead of making your own. Remembering why you agreed to work in the first place and why you are making those sacrifices can make this better and avoid feeling guilty.

Schedule Yourself: Similar to how you carve out the time you need for work to be successful at your job, set aside family time, me time, or couple time. Putting things on your calendar will help to make sure you have that time reserved and don’t feel like you are missing out on family time.

Be Present: When you come home, turn your devices off or at least put them aside. Make time for family time either during dinner or during a TV show that you all enjoy watching together. You will have plenty of time to catch up on work and answer emails when the kids go to bed, in the mornings, or during the day.

Accept help: As much as we all want to be, nobody is supermom. Don’t feel bad about accepting your parents offer to take the kids one day a week, or your husbands offer to pick up groceries.

Most of all, remember that if working is best for your family and self, then don’t feel guilty!